I won't go into length about my day because it was highly uneventful. The boat was rocking really bad all day and there wasn't much to do. I spent much of the day in bed hoping that the sea would calm down before my dinner at the chefs table.
6:30 pm came and I made my way to Prime C. It is the ships specialty steakhouse where the dinner is hosted. On arrival I was greeted by the Matter Dee who introduced me to Dr. Jannie Mackay. Dr. Mackay is the Enrichment speaker on the ship and the guest host for this evenings dinner. I was the first guest to arrive so Dr. Mackay and I were guided into the lounge area to get better acquainted and wait for the remaining 9 in our party.
The guests included a Mother and daughter from California, A Couple also from California, A man from Chicago, and a couple from Sweden with there daughter who has in a wheelchair. Once everyone had arrived we moved into the dinning room. The table was a long rectangle. I didn't like this as it cause a split the conversation between the two sides. The Californians had their conversation going on one side while my side of the table was dominated by the man from Chicago named Dominik.
Dominik was the kinda guy who is a wealth of knowledge but absolutely no social skills. The moment anyone opened their mouth he had an instant correction to make and then a 10 minute lecture that wandered to a different topic completely. As obnoxious as this was a lot of things he was saying were confirmed to be accurate by the rest of the guest. After being cut off numerous times I took a passive roll in the conversation and just listened. This was highly entertaining to the gentleman from Sweden. His wife had informed us that his English was not the best and he does not talk much. At one point after Dominik had cut me off in mid sentence for what seemed like the tenth time. His face said what his mouth couldn't "This guy.". My eyes widened as if to reply "I know! He won't shut up!" and we both had a quick chuckle.
Dinner was absolutely a cut above anything I have experienced. A man named Pierre introduced himself as the Sommelier (wine expert). Each course that came Pierre would describe the wine he had selected for the course and what to look for in the pairing. He also told us about the specific glasses he had picked out for each wine and how it would effect the taste. It was highly educational. While I don't see a large difference between the specialty restaurants and the main dining hall, The chefs table is well worth the $95 price tag. I really think it should be experienced at least once. If I could go back I think I would pass on the 4 dinners I had booked at Aqualina and Prime C and just go with trying the 3 different dinners at the chef's table.
After dinner I went for a drink at The Looking Glass. I ran into the Swedish Trio from dinner. We had a great time talking about the dinner - mostly about Dominik. I also met the ships Dj, Marico. He is a delightful character roughly about my age from Brazil who has been working on the ship for 5 years. He showed me an app he is working on for the Ipad that is an interactive travel book. His photos where incredible and I was very impressed. He also informed me that he was taking the same tour in Akureyri that I am on. Every tour the ship sends one of thier people to make sure everyone gets back. It was getting late and I was extremely excited to arrive in Iceland in the morning so I went home to bed around midnight.
As much as I love writing everyday I am going to take a few days off to really take advantage of my time in Iceland. I am really enjoying the writing process but as I am a complete newbie, It takes me some time to get all it out on the page. We have an at sea day coming up on our Journey between Iceland and the Faroe Islands on August 4th. I plan to compress all my Iceland stories into one large update for that day. That is all for now. Akureyri, Here I come!